March 24, 2026, 6:43 p.m. MT<\/p>\n
Ever since the end of the last season, it has long been understood that Indiana<\/a>‘s Fernando Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy and led the Hoosiers to a national championship, was the No. 1 quarterback prospect in the 2026 draft. No one questioned it for months.<\/p>\n Now, a month before the draft, apparently analysts have gotten bored with that.<\/p>\n One notable analyst, ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky, had this to say on Get Up.<\/p>\n “I think Ty Simpson is the best quarterback in this draft,” he said.<\/p>\n And Mike Tannenbaum added that some teams have the same opinion.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n The Arizona Cardinals are believed to like Simpson, who had 15 career starts for Alabama, all last season. He completed 64.5% of his passes for 3,567 yards, 29 touchdowns an only five interceptions.<\/p>\n He is 6-1 and 211 pounds, so he doesn’t have a huge frame, and he was a five-star recruit coming out of high school. He can make all the throws, especially when protected.<\/p>\n It is assumed he will go in the first round.<\/p>\n Now, Orlovsky and Simpson happen to be represented by the same agency, although that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t believe what he is saying.<\/p>\n This sort of sudden opinion might make it easier for the Cardinals to select him. Would they do it at No. 3 overall? Most would say that is a reach, but if they were to select him, wouldn’t it feel good to think that they got the actual best quarterback in the draft?<\/p>\n Until anything happens on the field, feelings and vibes are all we have.<\/p>\n Get more Cardinals<\/a> and NFL coverage from Cards<\/a> Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Apple podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 24, 2026, 6:43 p.m. MT Ever since the end of the last season, it has long been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[95878,375,390,2604,1327,7,6,95973,95974,95882,95930,95892,98232,98165,98164,95896,95888,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-832374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-arizona-cardinals","11":"tag-arizonacardinals","12":"tag-cardinals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcardinals","16":"tag-sstsncardinals","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagbig-ten-conference-football","19":"tag-tagespn-inc","20":"tag-tagheisman-trophy","21":"tag-tagindiana-hoosiers","22":"tag-tagindiana-hoosiers-football","23":"tag-tagnational-sports","24":"tag-tagnfl","25":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","26":"tag-tagsports-news","27":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116288084398964191","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}